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This story originally appeared in Dirge Magazine on Jan. 26, 2017. Barbie body harvesters are turning your favorite childhood toys into unnerving and unforgettable works of art. Dolls placed into scenes of sin and sexuality create disarming juxtapositions. Detached, neatly contoured limbs and severed, big-eyed heads make an uncanny valley torture chamber. Scroll down and feast your…

The retrospective exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s artwork currently on display at Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum showcases a 6-decade career hallmarked by obsessive, mind-bending repetitions of patterns and immersive viewer experiences. The exhibition has turned into a social media sensation. An Instagram selfie in a Kusama infinity room such as “Phalli’s Field” is a status symbol,…

Since its inception in 1947, the CIA has directly and intentionally shaped American culture in an effort to promote a positive image of America at home and abroad. Many popular books, music, art, and movies of the twentieth century rose to prominence in part because of covert government operations. In 1950, the CIA formed the…

When photographer Fred Scruton approached the colorful Niagara Falls, New York home and saw the extensive hand-painted ornamentation covering the house and yard, he knew he’d found a major outsider artist. The owner of the house, a man who goes by Prophet Isaiah Robertson, knew Scruton had been sent by God to record his message…

As English artist Louis Wain’s schizophrenia worsened, his adorable anthropomorphic cat drawings turned into psychedelic pet portraits full of bright colors and repeating patterns. All of a sudden, his calendar-ready artwork twisted into something uncomfortable and otherworldly. The change in Wain’s work is profound and brings into question how much his illness influenced his art. …

Van Gogh painted vibrant sunflowers, MC Escher produced mind-bending visual puzzles, and Andy Warhol is best known for his soup cans. Each artist also produced bleak cranial creations to remind us of our inevitable demise. Here are 13 works by master artists featuring the human skull. Read the full piece at Dirge Magazine.

This Halloween, magicians, spiritualists, and fans will attempt to contact Harry Houdini from beyond the grave, a ninety-year-old tradition born out of a widow’s promise to her dead husband at a time when spiritualism enjoyed rampant popularity and even scientific support. Houdini, aside from being the most famous magician and escape artist in United States…

When laws and culture exist to proliferate power for men, inhabiting a female body is a radical threat to the patriarchy. Several recent protest movements have made use of male discomfort with female bodies to fight for political reform. Read the full article at Dirge Magazine.